Spanish 1001, Jacob's 101, and replacing the bad with the good.
Man, a language class sure takes up a lot of time! I meet for over 2 hours, 4 days a week. And then after class, I'm still studying. Yet with all that time put into, I still feel like a baby learning to speak for the first time. Nothing comes out of my mouth if I want to spontaneously speak Spanish. I still need the text book and my notes in front of me to cue me to use any of the words and phrases that I am learning. Well, it's only been day 3. Patience. Besides studying for the quiz that I took this morning (or yesterday morning), I've actually enjoyed the time that I've been spending on learning Spanish.
Wednesday evening I hung out with Joanna. We were supposed to trade tasks with each other. She came over so that I could research the best cell phone deal for her needs and in return, she agreed to help me organize my messy room. We ended up hanging out in my room, talking and stuff, instead of trading tasks, and then went to this place called "Jacob's 101: Mediterranean and American Cuisine" for dinner. We had never seen or heard of the place, but came across it while driving in my neighborhood looking for a place to grab dinner. From the external, it looked like some type of contemporary-looking place that served Mediterranean (sp?) American Fusion or something like that. The name of the restaurant was in this energetic, cursive style, as if hip things were going on inside. Whatever...we just wanted to eat. Then we walk into the front room to find empty dining tables. We continue walking to the back, as directed by a piece of paper taped on the wall, and find a bunch of "locals (as Joanna described them)," old caucasian men that drank beer and smoked and watched sports on the mounted TV and talked to each other like they were all old buds. We sat down far away from them, near the window to get away from the smoke and to get away from their curious stares. We looked at each other and laughed, because there was nothing Mediterranean about this place. It was a bunch of old caucasian locals. Then we looked at the drink menu and found out that it was "Ladies Night." But we were the only women in the joint! What if they thought we walked in there, because it was "Ladies Night!" Then I noticed the music that was blasting through the tiny speakers, competing with the sports channel and talking old men for sound space. OOMCH, OOMCH, OOMCH... It was club music from the 90s (C&C Music Factory and such)! Who was the music catering to? The talking old men? The phantom Mediterraneans? Accidental walk-ins like us? And how did the music help heighten the oh-so-subtle Mediterranean atmosphere in this joint? Well, we were very hungry, so we each ordered a tuna melt and sides. Joanna had the kettle chips and coleslaw, and I had the kettle ships and beer cheese soup, because I was curious. (I decided against the Canadian Walleye, since it was neither Mediterranean nor American.) It was a strange but fun experience, because I was in the company of someone that was able to find the fun in it and laugh with me about it.
Thursday, I was thinking about going to the Theatre de Jeune Lune to see Figaro. Only $10 on Thursdays!! I emailed a few people to see if they wanted to join me. Christa couldn't make it cuz she had work tonight, and I didn't hear back from Alan or Ursula, so I decided to hang out with Raul and get him to fix some ongoing problems with my laptop instead. He gave me a new modem card that used a regular phone jack instead of the thin plastic thing that kept getting loose while I was online. He also cleaned up my hard drive and got rid of some nuisances that
"Mr. Hyde" had left behind after repeatedly violating my laptop while he was living here with me. Mr. Hyde did unclean things to my laptop. Raul stepped in to clean up whatever he could. I appreciate that. And then we just chatted like two old friends for a couple hours. It was a really cool experience, because we didn't have too much to talk about when we were dating. I was pleasantly surprised, because I thought that if we had nothing to talk about while we were dating, we'd definitely be worse off as friends. I'm excited about being friends with him now. He's a good soul.
I'm gonna meet Christa for coffee near campus in the afternoon. Hopefully I'll get to know her better, since she's an important part of Steve's life now, and I respect her perceptiveness and sensitivity to how people work. After that I'll put in 2-3 hours for my research assistantship. Then I think I'll go home to work on my thesis and rest up for Psychopop's midnight show. I think I'll be braver about taking pictures this time, unless I am told it's not okay, so that I'll actually get more decent shots of the bandmembers. I don't think Vaxjo liked that I only got the top of his head last time.
Wednesday evening I hung out with Joanna. We were supposed to trade tasks with each other. She came over so that I could research the best cell phone deal for her needs and in return, she agreed to help me organize my messy room. We ended up hanging out in my room, talking and stuff, instead of trading tasks, and then went to this place called "Jacob's 101: Mediterranean and American Cuisine" for dinner. We had never seen or heard of the place, but came across it while driving in my neighborhood looking for a place to grab dinner. From the external, it looked like some type of contemporary-looking place that served Mediterranean (sp?) American Fusion or something like that. The name of the restaurant was in this energetic, cursive style, as if hip things were going on inside. Whatever...we just wanted to eat. Then we walk into the front room to find empty dining tables. We continue walking to the back, as directed by a piece of paper taped on the wall, and find a bunch of "locals (as Joanna described them)," old caucasian men that drank beer and smoked and watched sports on the mounted TV and talked to each other like they were all old buds. We sat down far away from them, near the window to get away from the smoke and to get away from their curious stares. We looked at each other and laughed, because there was nothing Mediterranean about this place. It was a bunch of old caucasian locals. Then we looked at the drink menu and found out that it was "Ladies Night." But we were the only women in the joint! What if they thought we walked in there, because it was "Ladies Night!" Then I noticed the music that was blasting through the tiny speakers, competing with the sports channel and talking old men for sound space. OOMCH, OOMCH, OOMCH... It was club music from the 90s (C&C Music Factory and such)! Who was the music catering to? The talking old men? The phantom Mediterraneans? Accidental walk-ins like us? And how did the music help heighten the oh-so-subtle Mediterranean atmosphere in this joint? Well, we were very hungry, so we each ordered a tuna melt and sides. Joanna had the kettle chips and coleslaw, and I had the kettle ships and beer cheese soup, because I was curious. (I decided against the Canadian Walleye, since it was neither Mediterranean nor American.) It was a strange but fun experience, because I was in the company of someone that was able to find the fun in it and laugh with me about it.
Thursday, I was thinking about going to the Theatre de Jeune Lune to see Figaro. Only $10 on Thursdays!! I emailed a few people to see if they wanted to join me. Christa couldn't make it cuz she had work tonight, and I didn't hear back from Alan or Ursula, so I decided to hang out with Raul and get him to fix some ongoing problems with my laptop instead. He gave me a new modem card that used a regular phone jack instead of the thin plastic thing that kept getting loose while I was online. He also cleaned up my hard drive and got rid of some nuisances that
"Mr. Hyde" had left behind after repeatedly violating my laptop while he was living here with me. Mr. Hyde did unclean things to my laptop. Raul stepped in to clean up whatever he could. I appreciate that. And then we just chatted like two old friends for a couple hours. It was a really cool experience, because we didn't have too much to talk about when we were dating. I was pleasantly surprised, because I thought that if we had nothing to talk about while we were dating, we'd definitely be worse off as friends. I'm excited about being friends with him now. He's a good soul.
I'm gonna meet Christa for coffee near campus in the afternoon. Hopefully I'll get to know her better, since she's an important part of Steve's life now, and I respect her perceptiveness and sensitivity to how people work. After that I'll put in 2-3 hours for my research assistantship. Then I think I'll go home to work on my thesis and rest up for Psychopop's midnight show. I think I'll be braver about taking pictures this time, unless I am told it's not okay, so that I'll actually get more decent shots of the bandmembers. I don't think Vaxjo liked that I only got the top of his head last time.